Al Gore has aligned with Repower America to ask everyone throughout the US to send a message to their local congressman to support the energy legislation currently before the House. The Repower folks have made it easy too. All you have to do is add your email address and zip code. They’ll make sure it gets to the right politician.
A company in Western Kentucky has built more than 40 structures, including eight schools, using an innovative construction method called Insulated Concrete Forms. ICF consists of four-inch Styrofoam blocks reinforced by a rebar grid into which concrete is poured. The foam provides insulation while the concrete offers strength and durability.
President Larry Graves says the original ICF “test project” was his own home, built with Insulated Concrete Forms in 2003; “The initial investment costs up to 8 percent more than traditional building methods, but I made my money back in savings within the first two years.”
Gravesco is the exclusive provider of this building technology which, according to Graves, results in utility bills 50% lower than those generated by a traditionally constructed house; “Regardless of how hot or cold it is outside, the temperature of the structure stays the same,” he said. “Our electricity bills come from from our boys running their Playstation units all day long, the dozens of loads of laundry they generate, and the lights they forget to turn off.”
Just another reminder of the MIT Sustainability Summit-Starting this Friday:
Location: Walker Memorial Building 50 142 Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA 02139
Click here for more details
Description: The MIT Sustainability Summit, Discovering New Dimensions for Growth, brings together students, engineers, business leaders, academics, environmental activists, and public servants to discuss how we can most effectively support each other as we face the opportunities and challenges of transitioning to a sustainable world.
For questions contact:
Catharina Lavers clavers@MIT.EDU
Start Time: 9:30
Date: 2009-04-24
From the New York Times Green Inc. blog an article on the options being debated for either totally replacing the current carbon cap and trade system or tweaking our current set-up. On one side of the argument, many are saying that giving carbon emission credits to big business amounts amounts to rewarding polluters. (Given the fact some companies have been selling off carbon credits they got for free, it’s not hard to see that point.)
Some environmental groups favor a ‘carbon tax’ which would be applied to all non-renewable carbon-based energy sources. The revenue generated from levying this tax would be used to fund renewable energy development and offset current tax burdens.
There is no doubt a carbon tax would have an immediate effect on the behavior of the business community (and consumers who would end up paying the tax in the form of increased prices for all products and services using CO2 emitting fuels in their manufacture or provision.)
A carbon tax, while it is working in places like the UK, has always had a difficult time getting support in the US Congress due to the unknown impact it would have on our economy in the short term. The Obama Administration has put it back on the table, however. In the end it might be used to negotiate lower cap limits and perhaps charge for the carbon credits the government is currently handing out for free. Read the comments section on the NY Times article for other perspectives on this issue.
Last week’s Earth Day featured some of the world’s most recognisable buildings turning off their lights and going dark for the evening. Check out this link to the Boston Globe to see the Acropolis, Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House and ‘The Cube’ from last summer’s Beijing Games disappear into the Night.
When you visit the New York times website on Sunday evening, the list of most emailed articles is usually topped by either the big news story of the day, a particularly relevant Frank Rich article or some pithy commentary from Maureen Dowd. This past Sunday it was a 4,000 word article on noted academic Freeman Dyson, who has been comfortably employed as a big brain for over 50 years at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey.
Why the sudden interest in a man now is his mid 80s?
Dyson has always been considered a contrarian. As one of his colleagues observed, “… when consensus is forming like ice hardening on a lake, Dyson will do his best to chip away at the ice.”
While Dysons’s latest idea is not quite as ‘out there’ as his contributions to the shuttered ‘Orion’ project (inter-galatic space travel powered by controlled nuclear bomb blasts) his latest opinion–that we might all be overreacting to global warming–has certainly captured the attention of the scientific community and the media.
Several years ago, Dyson attracted attention with his rather curious statement that global warming could be easily dealt with by developing ‘carbon eating’ trees. This idea was based on Dyson’s observation of carbon levels at various times of the year. In temperate climates–such as Cambridge, MA–the level of carbon particles in the atmosphere are lowest in the fall. Assuming this coincides with the time of the year when trees and other vegetation are in full bloom and more equipped to extract carbon from the air, Dyson saw the possibility of geo-engineering a strain of trees that would perform this task more efficiently.
Recently, Dyson has been given to publicly wondering if global warming is all that bad and accusing Al Gore of being a ‘panic merchant’. The basis of his theory is our development from an agrarian economy to an post-industrial information-based society was powered by carbon-based energy, so how bad could it possibly be?
Warm Home Cool Planet finds it strange that a man of science is taking this position. Our progress as a civilization depends on our ability to develop and adapt new forms of technology that make our lives more convenient, more productive and safer. We discard old ways of doing things when something better comes along. How many people are sticking with a typewriter just because Hemingway wrote on one?
Carbon-based energy has been with us since the invention of the steam train. It is still relatively available and inexpensive–for now. We can already see a point where they will be neither. For the sake of our planet and future generations, it’s time our alternative sources of energy become our major sources of supply.
From Canada comes the rather amazing story of Cansolair, a company that reuses soda cans to make solar panels. Once installed, this soda/solar unit can provide up to 30% of the heating for your house. All this in the cloudy, foggy Labrador region. All without adding another CO2 particle to the environment. Maybe Coke knew it was onto something when they introduced this new flavor last year.
Check out this video to see how it’s done.
From the Brasilian magazine Brasileiros comes this provocative promotional video. Look at it a couple of times to see the relationships between CO2 emissions, oil, terrorism and hunger.
You might also be interested in World Mapper.
Various reports from our friends Down Under indicate Australians have also been looking at readily available alternatives to the use of non-renewable, greenhouse gas emitting forms of energy. And decided using less energy overall is the first and easiest step to take.
This report from an Warm Home Cool Planet colleague visiting Queensland:
One of the best things I’ve noticed, which is all over the place on TV and billboards, is the ClimateSmart Home Service. It’s run by the Queensland Government to save energy, money and the environment, and is part of the ClimateSmart Living Intitiative. For just $50 a qualified and licensed electrician comes to your home to install a wireless energy monitor for you to keep and conduct a constant energy audit of your home. You also get free water-and-energy efficient shower heads, and up to 15 free energy efficient light bulbs.
There is, however, another reason why are utility company trucks are prowling the streets of Australia’s capital cities handing out free Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs.
If Australia continues to grow demand for electricity at historic rates, energy retailers will need to generate 70,000 GWh/year in renewable energy to meet the Australian Government’s 2020 Mandatory Renewable Energy Targets (MRET). Penalties will be up to $40 for every MWh they fall short.
With current renewable energy generation in Australia around 25,000 GWh/y, tripling the amount of renewable energy on the grid over the next 1o years will be challenging to say the least. Energy retailers have decided that helping consumers to reduce their energy consumption should dampen overall energy demands, making MRETs more achievable.
With Obama Administration’s stated intention to focus on energy policy as soon as the current economic crisis subsides, will Renewable Energy Targets soon be enacted here? If they are, look for the price of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to skyrocket.
Dow Corning, the largest maker of residential insulation in the US, can expect their economic recovery to start ahead of time due to the tax rebates and incentives for housing weatherization included within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law by President Obama last month.
“The weatherization program is the sort of activity that is likely to spur demand,” said Owens Corning spokesman Scott Deitz. “No doubt, people will install insulation because of this program. We just don’t know how many.”
This could also boost employment at Dow Cornings’ largest US insulation manufacturing plant in Newark, which has lost over 700 jobs in the last decade.
An estimated 80 million homes in the United States are currently under-insulated. Any home built before the mid-1980s and that has not been remodeled is unlikely to meet insulation building codes in force today.